Guided by Mao Tse-tung’s Thought

Red Guards Destroy the Old and Establish the New

[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 9, #36, Sept. 2,
1966, pp. 17-19. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]

Since August 20, the young Red Guards of Peking,
detachments of students, have taken to the streets. With the revolutionary rebel spirit
of the proletariat, they have launched a furious offensive to sweep away reactionary,
decadent bourgeois and feudal influences, and all old ideas, culture, customs and
habits. This mounting revolutionary storm is sweeping the cities of the entire nation.
“Let Mao Tse-tung’s thought occupy all positions; use it to transform the mental
outlook of the whole of society; sweep away all ghosts and monsters; brush aside all
stumbling-blocks and resolutely carry the great proletarian cultural revolution through
to the end!” This is the militant aim of the young revolutionary fighters. Their
revolutionary actions have everywhere received the enthusiastic support of the
revolutionary masses.

In Peking. During the past week and more Red Guards have scored victory after
victory as they pressed home their attack against the decadent customs and habits of
the exploiting classes. Beating drums and singing revolutionary songs detachments of
Red Guards are out in the streets doing propaganda work, holding aloft big portraits of
Chairman Mao, extracts from Chairman Mao’s works, and great banners with the words: We
are the critics of the old world; we are the builders of the new world. They have held
street meetings, put up big-character posters and distributed leaflets in their attack
against all the old ideas and habits of the exploiting classes. As a result of the
proposals of the Red Guards and with the support of the revolutionary masses, shop signs
which spread odious feudal and bourgeois ideas have been removed, and the names of many
streets, lanes, parks, buildings and schools tainted with feudalism, capitalism or
revisionism or which had no revolutionary significance have been replaced by
revolutionary names. The service trades have thrown out obsolete rules and regulations.

Support for the revolutionary actions of the Red Guards
has been expressed in countless big-character posters which the masses of revolutionary
workers and staff have put up in the newly renamed major thoroughfares of the capital.
They have also expressed their support with street demonstrations.

Draping the many-storied front of the newly renamed
Peking Department Store are gigantic banners with the words: “Resolute support for the
revolutionary students’ revolutionary actions!” and “Salute to the young revolutionary
fighters!” Workers of the Peking Steel Plant, encouraged by the actions of the
revolutionary students, have launched vigorous attacks on old ideas, styles of work,
methods and systems that hamper the revolution and production in their plant. They have
put forward many revolutionary proposals and already begun reforms. Workers at the Peking
No. 2 Cotton Textile Mill are emulating the revolutionary rebel spirit of the Red Guards
and are attacking all old influences. The workers hold that everyone has the right to
sweep away the influences of the old, not only outside, in the streets, but also in the
factories and all other enterprises and in government offices. In this way, by sweeping
together, the great proletarian cultural revolution will be carried through to complete
victory.

A poster put up on a street sign by Peking’s
Red Guards proposing a new name for the street

Commanders and fighters of the People’s Liberation
Army in the capital have unanimously expressed support for the revolutionary students’
revolutionary actions, and the carrying of the great proletarian cultural revolution
through to the end. They say that the great revolutionary actions of the revolutionary
students in attacking bourgeois ideology, customs and habits is another instance of the
great material strength that is generated by Mao Tsetung’s thought once it grips the
revolutionary masses. Speaking at a discussion meeting of the 12th company of a garrison
unit in Peking commanders and fighters said that the revolutionary actions of the young
fighters are smashing the old world and building a new world. Pao Hsi-ming, of a P.L.A.
Navy Air Force unit who won a combat citation, second class, for shooting down a U.S.
made plane of the Chiang gang, told a Hsinhua correspondent that the revolutionary
actions of the Red Guards were thoroughgoing revolutionary actions as the result of
their following the teachings of Chairman Mao and acting according to his instructions.
“They are doing right and doing fine,” he said.

In Shanghai. In this huge city which has the largest concentration of
capitalists in the country and which, until the liberation, had long been under the rule
of the imperialists and domestic reactionaries, the revolutionary students and the broad
masses of workers and staff have taken up their iron brooms to sweep away all old habits
and customs. The show windows of the Wing On Co., one of the biggest department stores
in the city, are plastered with big-character posters put up by the Red Guards and
workers and staff of the store, proposing that “Wing On” (Eternal Peace) should be
changed into “Yong Hong” (Red For Ever) or “Yong Dou” (Struggle For Ever). The posters
point out that in the old society the boss of the store chose the name “Wing On” because
he wanted to be left in peace for ever to exploit the working people. “For a long time
now the store has been in the hands of the people and we are certainly not going to
tolerate this odious name a day longer,” say the posters.

In “The Great World,” the biggest amusement centre of
Shanghai, workers and staff together with the Red Guards took down the old name sign
which was several metres long. When the last character of the sign was brought down,
thousands of revolutionary people in the streets and in the windows of neighbouring
buildings applauded and cheered: “Long live Chairman Mao!” and “Long live the great
proletarian cultural revolution!”

The waterfront of the Whangpoo River in Shanghai was,
until the liberation, the centre of imperialist plunder of the Chinese people. The
buildings here have still carried many reminders of the imperialists and here the Red
Guards and revolutionary workers and staff have gone in for revolutionizing in a big way.
They have taken down all the imperialist signs from walls and removed the bronze lions
outside one of the big buildings.

The revolutionary workers and staff of Shanghai barber
shops have adopted revolutionary measures in response to the proposals of the Red Guards:
they no longer cut and set hair in the grotesque fashions indulged in by a small minority
of people; they cut out those services specially worked out for the bourgeoisie such as
manicuring, beauty treatments and so on. In those shops which sold only goods catering
to the needs of a small minority of people, workers and staff have taken the revolutionary
decision to start supplying the people at large with good popular commodities at low
prices.

In Tientsin. For the past several days there has been a new revolutionary
atmosphere in the streets. Drums and gongs have been sounding around Binjiang Street, the
business centre, and firecrackers have crackled all day long; many shops have discarded
their old shop signs, and replaced them with new revolutionary ones. Inspired by the
revolutionary spirit of the Red Guards, the revolutionary workers and staff members of
“Quanyechang,” one of the biggest markets in the city, smashed the name sign inlaid in
its wall for the past 38 years and hung up a new sign, the “People’s Market.” The
“Beiyang Textile Mill” which was established in the time of the Northern warlords 45
years ago is now renamed “Four-New Textile Mill,” meaning a mill with new ideas, new
culture, new customs and new habits. The “Golden Tripod,” the factory’s old trademark,
has been changed for a new trademark, “Worker and Peasant.”

In Hangchow. The Tungpo Theatre, Tungpo Road, and the Su Ti (Su Dike) on
Hangehow’s West Lake named after Su Tung-po, a feudal man of letters of eight centuries
ago, have been given new names with revolutionary meanings. The scissors shops which
used the former shop owner’s name — Chang Hsiao-chuan — as their shop sign for the past
three centuries, have now taken the new name: “Hangchow Scissors Shop.”

In Sining. In the capital of Chinghai Province, western China, the broad
masses of revolutionary workers and staff, revolutionary cadres and poor and
lower-middle peasants are giving resolute support to the young revolutionary fighters
for their revolutionary rebel spirit of defying heaven or earth. Some shops, cinemas
and theatres have been given new revolutionary names. Carrying large portraits of
Chairman Mao and beating drums and gongs, the workers of the Sining Transport Vehicle
Plant, a model enterprise, paraded the streets, pledging their support to the young
fighters. Backing up the young revolutionary fighters, the poor and lower middle
peasants of the Mafang People’s Commune have changed their commune’s name into the
“Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Commune.”